Politics, to a degree, is about legislation, administration. You can’t be there in the trenches.

Theatre and opera were always the twin kingdoms that I felt I had to conquer, because they were my parents‘ favorites.

When you‘re a freelance director, you are hired to create the art, and it kind of stops there.

At the core of what I’m doing is a belief in the audience, a belief that populism doesn’t mean dumbing down theater, but rather giving the audience a voice and a role in experiencing theater.

I think every theater in America wants a younger audience… and you can’t just hope to have a younger audience, you have to program things that audience is going to connect with.

Creativity and the world of the imagination – the beauty of what we see as a child and the kind of play that we experience as a child – can be a way for us to survive tough times.

I grew up with a beautiful gold harp sitting in our living room. My older sister played it.

Im always interested in looking – historically – at how theater can animate history and how all of that can make us engage with our lives in an enriching way.

It’s freeing to not be caught up in your own personal baggage.

Im always interested in working with people who are good team players – that are selfless that way in their interests and dedication to the project.

Art cannot be looked at as an elite, sacred event anymore. It has to be embraced as an accessible, popular form, which is what I believe theater is at its roots.

I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t even know what tomorrow brings. When I’m teaching, obviously I’m in town for the class every week.

I think in our culture there’s been a tendency for people to blame the audience. There is a tendency in our industry to say, ‘The audience has left the building. People don’t want culture anymore.’

We’re a depraved civilization. All this technology, all the computer games and the iPhones… nobody will sit for art anymore. What a dismaying state of humanity.

Creativity is a form of knowledge.

I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level.

I had to drop a boulder to wake people up about the A.R.T. We’ve done that, and now we have audiences again who want cutting-edge work, who want to be challenged, but who also won‘t be falling asleep at the theater.

Look at where I lived! Four blocks from Lincoln Center. I used to play in the fountain. And then I started taking dance lessons. I was in ‘The Nutcracker’ for the N.Y. City Ballet when I was 8 and dancing in ‘The Firebird’ for George Balanchine when I was 9. Believe me, that’s something you don’t ever forget.

I’m always interested in looking – historically – at how theater can animate history and how all of that can make us engage with our lives in an enriching way.

My generation of director has no illusions that we are going to be fed and cared for by subsidized theater in America.

I give so much of myself to my work; I want to be with people who are going to be there with me.

The idea of making audiences feel like they matter, that the theatre matters, and that they’re a partner in the event—that’s what fuels me as a director . . . I believe it’s actually radical to think about the audience.